Henry George — A Perplexed Philosopher
Part II—Repudiation (continued)
Chapter III — Letter To The Times
No one can boldly utter a great truth, and then, when the times have become
ripe for it, and his utterance voices what is burning in hearts and consciences,
whisper it away. So despite his apology to landlords in the St. James's
Gazette,
and the pains he had taken to make his peace with them in "The Man versus the
State," what he had said on the land question in Social Statics came
up again to trouble Mr. Spencer.
But for a long time his position on the land question was almost as dual
as that of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In his personal circle it was doubtless
assumed that he was a stanch supporter of private property in land, and if
his earlier opinions were known there it was understood that he was sorry for
them. And he had become, if not an active member, at least a valued ally of
the Liberty and Property Defence League. But in a wider circle what he had
written against private property in land was telling with increasing force.
For to this wider circle his St. James's apology had hardly reached, and even
when known was not deemed a recantation of the opinions deliberately expressed
in Social Statics, which he still, through D. Appleton & Co., continued
to publish, without any modification whatever. The steady growth of the movement
that began with the publication of Progress and Poverty everywhere enlisted
active men in the propagation of the idea of the equality of rights to land
and called wide attention to what he had said on that subject. They naturally
seized on the argument against the justice of private property in land in Chapter
IX of Social Statics, and spread it broadcast, as the utterance of one now
widely esteemed the greatest of philosophers. Of all else that Mr. Spencer
has written, there is nothing that has had such a circulation as has thus been
given to this chapter. It was printed and is still being printed by many American
newspapers8, and was issued in tract form for free distribution in the United
States, Canada and Australia; editions of hundreds of thousands being issued
at a time9, many of which must have reached Great Britain, even if it was not
reprinted there.
8. Even as I write I am constantly receiving, especially from the West, copies
of papers which contain Chapter IX. of "Social Statics" and which
in ignorance of all he has since said, continue to speak of Mr. Spencer
as an advocate of
equal rights to land.
9. About the time I ran for Mayor of New York (1886) on a platform which attracted
great attention to the idea of equal rights to land, one enthusiastic advocate
of the idea, Mr. W. J. Atkinson, himself printed some 500,000 copies.
This wide circulation of his condemnation of private property in land did
not, it is probable, much trouble Mr. Spencer, since it did not reach his
London circle. But in November, 1889 — six years after his letter to
the St. James's Gazette — some echoes of it made their way into
The Times, the very journalistic center of high English respectability.
The matter thus got into the Times: Mr. John Morley, Member of Parliament
for Newcastle, being in that city, was interviewed by some of his constituents,
representing a labor organization. Among other questions land nationalization
was brought up; Mr. John Laidler, a bricklayer, speaking for it. Mr. Morley
expressing dissent, Mr. Laidler cited the authority of Mr. Spencer in support
of the ideas that land had been made private property by force and fraud, and
should be appropriated by the community for the benefit of all. The Times of
November 5, contained a report of this interview.
This report in the Times aroused Mr. Spencer at once. For although
he had no objection to the circulation of his radical utterances in America,
where
through D. Appleton & Co. he was still publishing and advertising Social
Statics, it was evidently quite a different matter to him that they should
be known in the pleasant circle wherein with Sir John and his Grace and
the peers and judges of the Liberty and Property Defence League he was
personally
dwelling. He promptly sent this letter to the Times. It appeared on the
7th.
To the Editor of The Times.
Sir: During the interview between Mr. Morley and some of his constituents,
reported in your issue of the 5th inst., I was referred to as having set forth
certain opinions respecting landownership. Fearing that, if I remain silent,
many will suppose I have said things which I have not said, I find it needful
to say something in explanation.
Already within these few years I have twice pointed out that these opinions
(made to appear by those who have circulated them widely different from what
they really are, by the omission of accompanying opinions) were set forth in
my first work, published forty years ago; and that, for the last twelve or
fifteen years, I have refrained from issuing new editions of that work and
have interdicted translations, because, though I still adhere to its general
principles, I dissent from some of the deductions.
The work referred to — Social Statics — was
intended to be a system of political ethics — absolute political
ethics, or that which ought to be, as distinguished from relative political
ethics, or that
which is at
present
the nearest practicable approach to it. The conclusion reached concerning
landownership was reached while seeking a valid basis for the right of
property, the basis
assigned by Locke appearing to me invalid. It was argued that a satisfactory
ethical warrant for private ownership could arise only by contract between
the community, as original owner of the inhabited area, and individual
members, who became tenants, agreeing to pay certain portions of the produce,
or its
equivalent in money, in consideration of recognized claims to the rest.
And in the course of the argument it was pointed out that such a view of
landownership
is congruous with existing legal theory and practice; since in law every
landowner is held to be a tenant of the Crown — that is, of the community,
and since, in practice, the supreme right of the community is asserted
by every
Act of
Parliament which, with a view to public advantage, directly or by proxy
takes possession of land after making due compensation.
All this was said in the belief that the questions raised
were not likely to come to the front in our time or for many generations;
but, assuming that
they would sometime come to the front, it was said that, supposing the community
should assert overtly the supreme right which is now tacitly asserted, the
business of compensation of landowners would be a complicated one —
"One that perhaps cannot be settled in a strictly equitable manner. … Most
of our present landowners are men who have, either mediately or immediately,
either by their own acts or by the acts of their ancestors, given for their
estates equivalents of honestly earned wealth, believing that they were investing
their savings in a legitimate manner. To justly estimate and liquidate the
claims of such is one of the most intricate problems society will one day
have to solve."
To make the position I then took quite clear, it is needful
to add that, as shown in a succeeding chapter, the insistence on this doctrine,
in virtue
of which "the right of property obtains a legitimate foundation," had
for one of its motives the exclusion of Socialism and Communism, to which
I was then as profoundly averse as I am now.
Investigations made during recent years into the various forms of social
organization, while writing the Principles of Sociology, have in part confirmed
and in part changed the views published in 1850. Perhaps I may be allowed space
for quoting from Political Institutions a paragraph showing the revised conclusions
arrived at:
"At first sight it seems fairly inferable that the
absolute ownership of land by private persons must be the ultimate state
which industrialism brings
about. But though industrialism has thus far tended to individualize possession
of land while individualizing all other possession, it may be doubted
whether the final stage is at present reached. Ownership established by
force does
not stand on the same footing as ownership established by contract; and
though multiplied sales and purchases, treating the two ownerships in the
same way,
have tacitly assimilated them, the assimilation may eventually be denied.
The analogy furnished by assumed rights of possession over human beings
helps us
to recognize this possibility. For, while prisoners of war, taken by force
and held as property in a vague way (being at first much on a footing with
other members of a household), were reduced more definitely to the form
of property when the buying and selling of slaves became general; and,
while it
might centuries ago have been thence inferred that the ownership of man
by man was an ownership in course of being permanently established, yet
we see
that a later stage of civilization, reversing this process, has destroyed
ownership of man by man. Similarly, at a stage still more advanced, it
may be that private
ownership of land will disappear. As that primitive freedom of the individual
which existed before war established coercive institutions and personal
slavery comes to be reestablished as militancy declines, so it seems possible
that
the primitive ownership of land by the community, which, with the development
of coercive institutions, lapsed in large measure or wholly into private
ownership. will be revived as industrialism further develops. The regime of contract,
at present so far extended that the right of property in movables is recognized
only as having arisen by exchange of services or products under agreements,
or by gift from those who had acquired it under such agreements, may be
further extended so far that the products of the soil will be recognized
as property
only by virtue of agreements between individuals as tenants and the community
as landowner. Even now, among ourselves, private ownership of land is not
absolute. In legal theory landowners are directly or indirectly tenants
of the Crown
(which in our day is equivalent to the state, or, in other words, the community);
and the community from time to time resumes possession after making due
compensation. Perhaps the right of the community to the land, thus tacitly
asserted, will
in time to come be overtly asserted and acted upon after making full allowance
for the accumulated value artificially given. … There is reason to
suspect that, while private possession of things produced by labor will
grow even more
definite and sacred than at present, the inhabited area, which cannot be
produced by labor, will eventually be distinguished as something which
may not be privately
possessed. As the individual, primitively owner of himself, partially or
wholly loses ownership of himself during the militant regime, but gradually
resumes
it as the industrial regime develops, so possibly the communal proprietorship
of land, partially or wholly merged in the ownership of dominant men during
evolution of the militant type, will be resumed as the industrial type
becomes fully evolved" (pp. 643-646).
The use of the words "possible ... … possibly," and "perhaps," in
the above extracts shows that I have no positive opinion as to what may hereafter
take place. The reason for this state of hesitancy is that I cannot see my
way toward reconciliation of the ethical requirements with the politico-economical
requirements. On the one hand, a condition of things under which the owner
of, say, the Scilly Isles might make tenancy of his land conditional upon professing
a certain creed or adopting prescribed habits of life, giving notice to quit
to any who did not submit, is ethically indefensible. On the other hand, "nationalization
of the land," effected after compensation for the artificial value given
by cultivation, amounting to the greater part of its value, would entail,
in the shape of interest on the required purchase money, as great a sum as
is
now paid in rent, and indeed a greater, considering the respective rates
of interest on landed property and other property. Add to which, there is
no reason
to think that the substituted form of administration would be better than
the existing form of administration. The belief that land would be better
managed
by public officials than it is by private owners is a very wild belief.
What the remote future may bring forth there is no saying; but with a humanity
anything like that we now know, the implied reorganization would be disastrous.
I am, etc.
HERBERT SPENCER.
ATHENÆUM CLUB, Nov. 6.
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